After a long spell of very satisfying sleep, I seem to have entered upon a new cycle of insomniac troublesome-ness!
I’m not about to delve into the causes right here and now. Rather, I want, very briefly, to touch upon responses.
I might do a bit of blogging. Have a wee snack-ette (gratifying but poss’ unwise!). Have a wee (almost always!). Or read. And this latter seems ok to me. It’s enjoyable, edifying, and often even helps get me back to snoozy-snooze-land.
Right now I’m continuing to read volume two of Shelby Foote’s monumental and totally excellent The Civil War. And what prompted this post was the sheer joy I was taking, in reading Foote’s account of the travails of confederate general Braxton Bragg (what a great name!), shortly after Vicksburg, 1862.
It’s fascinating to read and reflect on how the conduct of war – or indeed any human enterprise requiring very large scale organisation and cooperation – is so fraught with interpersonal strife!
I can’t help but compare it to current UK politics, and think how blatantly shabby and amoral current Conservatism jockeying for power/position is. Surely history will see and judge it so? Just as we judge history that has drifted further down time’s stream.
But then that reminds me of that rather disheartening but alarmingly true aphorism, I forget who said it (and this is my version from memory): ‘if history teaches us one thing, it’s that history teaches us nothing.’
After typing the above, I googled it, and discovered it was in fact Hegel, and, if on-line sources are to be trusted, he said ‘The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.’ I’ve also seen something more like my rendering attributed to actor/bon vivant Peter Ustinov!
